This invention relates to a worm conveyor for conveying a plurality of like articles along a path of travel, that is, a conveyor in the form of a rotating member with an helical profile whose successive helixes define an article receiving pocket therebetween. More particularly, this invention relates to a worm conveyor of the foregoing type in which the length of the pocket defined by successive helixes, in a direction extending parallel to the path of travel of the conveyed articles, may be adjusted to accommodate articles when the like articles being conveyed change to different like articles of a different size.
A prior art worm conveyor for conveying articles along a path of travel is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,928 (Nickey et al.), which is assigned to the assignee of this application, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein. Worm conveyors of the type disclosed in the aforesaid ""928 patent are widely used in the glass container manufacturing industry to convey a plurality of like glass containers, in succession, between various locations in a manufacturing plant, for example, from an annealing lehr to and from an inspection station. Each such worm container is in the form of an elongate rotating member with an external helical thread, each pair of successive helixes of the worm conveyor defining a container receiving pocket. Rotation of the worm conveyor around an axis extending longitudinally through the worm conveyor has the effect of gently advancing a succession of containers in a plurality of such pockets along a path of travel that extends parallel to the axis of rotation of the worm conveyor.
A typical glass container manufacturing plant operates to produce containers in a wide range of sizes, and it is often necessary to replace a worm conveyor when changing container sizes to provide a proper match between the size of the containers being run at a given time and the sizes of the pockets in the worm conveyor, because such worm conveyors are often used as timing devices, and any extra clearance between pocket size and container size has an adverse effect on the timing accuracy of the processing station to which the containers are being conveyed. Further, such worm conveyor replacement is time consuming, resulting in some loss of the productive capacity of the processing line in which the worm conveyor is installed, and the need to inventory a large number of worm conveyors to accommodate all container sizes to be conveyed along such processing line is expensive in terms of equipment cost and storage cost.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a worm conveyor that is adapted to convey a wide range of article sizes along a path of travel without the need to replace the worm conveyor when changing the articles being conveyed from articles of a given size to articles of a somewhat greater or lesser size. More particularly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a worm conveyor of the foregoing type with article conveying pockets that are adjustable in a dimension extending parallel to the path of travel of the articles when changing the sizes of the articles being conveyed without excessively increasing or decreasing clearance between each article and the pocket in which it is received, to thereby avoid negatively impacting the timing accuracy of any processing device to which the articles are being conveyed. Even more particularly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a worm conveyor with pockets that are adjustable in a dimension extending parallel to the path of travel of the articles that is suited for conveying freshly formed glass containers of various sizes between various locations in a glass container manufacturing plant.
For a further understanding of the present invention and the objects thereof, attention is directed to the drawing and the following brief description thereof, to the detailed description of the preferred embodiment and to the appended claims.